SOUNDTRACK: FABIANO DO NASCIMENTO-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #43 (July 2, 2020).
Fabiano Do Nascimento was born in Brazil and now lives in L.A. he is an amazing guitar player, creating gorgeous soundscapes–‘an amalgamation of Afro-Brazilian jazz, folklore, bossanova and samba.”
For the first piece, “Nanã,” he plays what I think is a 10 string guitar (the fretboard is so wide!). he starts a lovely melody and then the screen splits into four. David Bergaud adds quiet piano and Julien Cantelm adds some complex drum patterns. The fourth quarter is Fabiano again (it took me a moment to realize it, because he is in a different room). He plays a lead guitar melody on a tiny ten stringed guitar.
The combination of his overdubbed rhythmic and melodic guitar lines, coupled with the delicate hands of piano player David Bergaud and drummer Julien Cantelm … flow into the first number, “Nanã,” a folkloric composition that “is the spirit that comes from African lineage and represents the forest … and is the primordial mother of earth.”
Up next is “Etude,” a composition by Fabiano inspired by Cuban classical guitar virtuoso Leo Brouwer.
For this piece, he switches to a six string guitar. He has a different accompaniment. Adam Ratner plays electric guitar (quietly) and Leo Costa play a some great complex drum (and cymbal) patterns as well as the chocalho.
Both Fabiano and Adam play leads, slow jazzy, pretty, while thr drums really do take much of the action.
Fabiano expresses
love for his motherland Brazil — an “endless foundation of inspiration” — is threaded deeply into the tapestry of his sound and ethos. If you’re looking for a musical moment of zen, this set comes highly recommended.
The final piece “Tributo” is a tribute to Brazilian composer Baden Powell de Aquino. This piece is for solo guitar.
[READ: June 20, 2020] Make Your Bed
My son completed a leadership training course for the Boy Scouts and he was given this book as a gift. I was intrigued by the title and because I like the guy who gave it to my son, so I thought I;d read it.
It’s a fast and easy read and I think a younger person (this was originally a college commencement address) could be inspired by it. I’m a little too set in my ways t make many changes (although I have made sure my bed has been made ever since reading this).
The book is set up in ten chapters: the ten points that he made during the speech. Each chapter gives a suggestion. It is followed by the practical origin of that suggestion and then a more intense incident in life in which he used that suggestion.
But of all of the suggestions, it was the introduction to his speech (printed in full at the end) that I found the most inspiring (except for the Ask.com part).
He says that
Ask.com says that the average American will meet ten thousand people in their lifetime…. If every one of you changed the lives of just ten people, and each one of those folks changed the lives of another ten people–then in five generations–125 years–[you 8,000 graduates] will have changed the lives of 800 million people.
Woah.
On to the ten:
1) Start Your Day with a Task Completed
–If you want to change the world…start off by making your bed.
If the Navy, if your bed wasn’t made tight enough to bounce a quarter off of, punishment ensued. In the other half of the chapter we learn that he was one of the soldiers who kept an eye on Saddam Hussein when he was captured.
2) You Can’t Go It Alone
–If you want to change the world…find someone to help you paddle.
You had to carry a raft everywhere you went–you couldn’t carry it by yourself and if you grew fatigued your team would help you out–as long as you helped out when someone else was tired. I’m not sure that the second story applies to this chapter because it’s about ho he got caught in a parachute and had his pelvis ripped apart. That seems more like a “don’t give up.” But whatever it is an amazing story.
3) Only the Size of your Heart Matters
–If you want to change the world…measure a person by the size of their heart.
How small servicemen were mocked for their size, but they persisted and even did better than their larger counterparts.
4) Life’s not Fair–Drive On!
–If you want to change the world…get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.
I learned about sugar cookies from Bob’s Burgers. As a punishment you run into the water and then roll all in the sand so it is everywhere. This was a punishment for doing bad. But sometime you just had to do it because life is not fair.
5) Failure Can Make You Stronger
–If you want to change the world…don’t be afraid of the circus.
The circus is applied to you when you fail. If you come last, i a physical challenge you are forced to do more exercises afterward–thereby tiring you out even more. This would make you come in last again. Which meant more circus. Although this extra work should actually make you stronger. If you can get through it.
6) You must dare greatly
–If you want to change the world…slide down the obstacle headfirst.
It is much safer to go slow, but if you really want to achieve, sometimes you have to take a risk. He gives an example of a risky mission that was undertaken because of time constraints.
7) Stand Up to the Bullies
–If you want to change the world…don’t back down from the sharks.
Part of the SEAL challenge was to swim alone at night in the water off of San Clemente. Where sharks definitely swam.
Bullies are everywhere. Look at what McRaven has to say about trump:
His cult of personality had drawn to him followers of the worst sort. His murderous thugs had brutalized the innocent and forced thousands to flee the country. No one … had mustered the courage to challenge the tyrant.
And once he is elected out:
The message was clear. He was no longer important. He could no longer intimidate those around him. He would no longer instill fear into his subjects. Gone was the gleaming palace. Gone were his handmaidens, the servants, and the generals. Gone was the power. The arrogance and oppressiveness that had defined his rule had ended. Courageous young American[s] … had stood up to this tyrant and now he was no longer a threat to anyone.
Okay, that’s really about Saddam Hussein. But it certainly applies to trump as well (except maybe the handmaidens).
8) Rise to the Occasion
–If you want to change the world…be your very best in the darkest moments.
Swim two thousand meters underwater to plant a device on the very bottom of a ship.
9) Give People Hope
–If you want to change the world…start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.
Hell week is when they try to get the weakest remaining cadets out of the program. They bury you up to your neck in mud. It is cold and wet and if five people agreed to get out, everyone would be let out. But rather than give up, it was time to sing, to keep everyone;s spirits up. The second half is about consoling families of dead soldiers–a very difficult task.
10) Never, Ever Quit!
–If you want to change the world…don’t ever, ever ring the bell.
On the first day of training the instructor holds aloft a bell and says that anyone who wants to quit just has to ring the bell three times. Their class started with 150. It was down to 33 by graduation. That’s a lot of bell ringing. he ends the book with meeting a solider in the hospital. He had stepped on an explosive. When the Admiral went to console him, the solider gave a slow thumbs up and said he would be okay.
Most of these challenges are pretty intense examples of what you might encounter in everyday life. But if you can remember to act the way he suggests, you should do fine.
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